BROKEN Katadyn PowerSurvivor 40 WaterMaker 💦 Ep. 20
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- Опубликовано: 16 окт 2024
- While using our Katadyn PowerSurvivor 40 WaterMaker for our FIRST TIME EVER, it began leaking and spraying salt water into the V-berth!
It started out working just fine and ran for about 2 hours before it started making a strange squeaky sound. Kenzie went to check on it and found a puddle of salt water in the V-berth and saw that water was being sprayed from the water maker pump body! We shut it off and examined the pump body where it was leaking, but couldn't figure out what could be wrong. Randall called the phone number listed on the user's manual for customer service and was extremely frustrated when the call got sent to voicemail. He had no choice, but to take the BRAND NEW water maker apart to find what was wrong.
We were able to get the "spraying" to stop, but it was still seeping water at the seams. After taking it apart a couple of times we were able to stop the leak, but weren't sure if it would be a long term fix or not. We decided to take the gamble and continue on our trip with our fingers crossed that it wouldn't give us any more problems along the way. We were happy to make it the rest of our trip without a single problem with the water maker!
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Hi Randall
Sorry to hear by this way from your problems with the PS40. Our customer service is available Monday till Friday at usual office Hours, but we have one in Switzerland (and yes, we work also Friday afternoon) and one in US at Spectra Watermakers in California, so we cover 18h a day by phone. Also our mail support works efficient, you get help within 24h.If there are questions or problems please let us know. We need your feedback to improve our products and our service.RonaldCustomer Service Katadyn/Spectra
Katadyn Group, thank you so much for watching our video and for taking the time to leave us a comment! We appreciate you reaching out to us and for being part of our sailing adventure! We were initially frustrated with our leaking watermaker as seen in this video. It seems that a sealing surface had a milling imperfection which we were eventually overcome by over torquing the main body socket cap screws. We didn't have any further problems with the watermaker after this. We absolutely loved having the Katadyn power survivor 40 on our sailboat and can't imagine what our trip would have been like without it. Having this watermaker aboard allowed us to travel more freely and spend more quality time in the remote islands away from the touristy areas for longer amounts of time. Having reliable drinking water is a must while cruising and we didn't want to confined to a set schedule based on when we were about to run out of fresh water. This watermaker allowed us to shower as often as we wanted, wash dishes daily, do our own laundry, and have unlimited supplies of drinking/cooking water. Thank you so much for your hard work and for providing us and so many other people with high quality products that make our lives so much better. We would love to do a full review video on the Katadyn Power Survivor 40 here in the near future and will recommend your products to everyone.
This is a longshot considering how old this video is... are you still using the Katadyn? I'm building a $29' cruiser and I was quoted a 40gph unit for nearly $15k! I can't conceive of using that much water. lmao
Informative video, thanks! We're thinking about getting this watermaker as opposed to an AC high output watermaker. We like the idea of the low power consumption. But that means we'd have to pretty much run it all day every day instead of for a couple of hours per week. Do you find that the unit is very noisy? In your video it seemed quiet, but when I watch LeaLea's videos (they have the same watermaker) theirs seems noisier. Also, are you running yours all day and getting 1.5 gph reliably? Thanks!
We LOVED using the Katadyn PowerSurvivor 40E watermaker!!! We had more than enough water to use everyday! We only ended up using maybe a gallon and 1/2 per person per day, which doesn't take long to make. We had an 18 gallon fresh water tank on board and then 10 more gallons in jerry cans that we kept reasonable amounts of water in at any given time. We would run the water maker every day or two for a couple of hours at a time, usually when the sun was high and we were making lots of solar power. We were actually making more power than we could use even WHILE running the watermaker. We used our fresh water for drinking, washing laundry, doing dishes, and cockpit showers. You don't want to let the watermaker sit for more than 2- 3 days without running it or you will need to brine it. So even with a larger water maker you would be running it every 3 days anyhow.
We feel that the Katadyn PowerSurvivor 40E is capable of providing water for up to 4 people. If you have more people than that, or maybe you like taking long showers, then you might look into a larger water maker, but you will still be running it every 3 days at the least. The noise was hardly noticeable at all! We mounted our water maker on rubber grommets to reduce the noise which helps quite a bit. Also mount it in a place that is VERY ACCESSIBLE. Think of it as a kitchen appliance that you want easy access to.
Check out our upgrades video(first 3 mins) for more detail of how we set up the watermaker and how we used it.
ruclips.net/video/OhLan1B1Vd0/видео.html
Thank you for such a detailed response, this sheds a new light on it and makes me think about things I hadn't considered before. Cheers!
No problem :) hope it all works out for you! Happy Sailing!
Nice torque wrench?
With all the videos you have with rain and thunder storms.... seems it would have been a lot easier and cheaper to catch rain water then run it though a gravity water filter. That's my plans for water resupply during any Florida Key trips and a future Bahamas trip. Also there seems to be a few islands with free water in the Bahamas as per RUclips videos... I'm making notes of those now. ;-) Now refrigeration is something I don't want to live without, still trying to figure how to add that to my 20 foot sail boat! Thanks for your videos... been going back through them now and then since you have a smaller boat.
Thank you for watching our videos and for taking the time to leave us a great comment! We really enjoy it when we can connect with viewers and have conversations about a variety of topics. It’s fun to hear that you too have a small boat and that you are planning on a sailing adventure! We often get asked why we chose to have a watermaker aboard such a small sailboat while cruising The Bahamas where water was available to us. Clearly we could have chosen to go without a watermaker and instead rely on tankage, marinas and rain catchment to supply our water needs, but in the end it was well worth the purchase of having our own supply of fresh water available to us at any given time. The first issue we ran into on our small Ericson 26 is that we only had 18 gallons of fresh water tankage, which isn’t really a lot. We considered adding more tankage, but even with additional tankage we felt that we would still be on the extreme low end of sufficient water supply to consider our boat a viable cruiser. Another factor to our decision was that we didn’t want the hassle of trying to find water every 10 days. We would have had to map out our trip based on water location and availability, which is totally fine and doable, we just knew that we would want to sail to further out Islands and have the freedom to stay there for as long as we wanted. We have seen other people’s videos where they talk about being pretty much out of water and some of them talk about being further way from the next water supply destination than they had thought they were, and some of them have talked about weather conditions preventing them from getting to the next water supply destination safely. There are a lot of variables to prepare for and consider. Plus we realized there is a real possibility of taking on bad water at marinas. It is rare, but we have had it happen to us twice in the U.S. and it is a real pain to clean out the tanks and flush the entire water system. Before going on our trip we didn’t know how much rain we would see in The Bahamas, so we couldn’t rely on water catchment being a sufficient source of water for us. Looking back, we only saw rain about 3 or 4 times during our 3 month stay (March - May) and some of that rain was only a light sprinkling. Catching rain water would be an interesting experience and we have seen people do it, but it probably really depends on where you are sailing and the time of the year for it to be a viable method. Anyway, those were some of our top reasons for choosing to install a watermaker. We know that it wasn’t a necessity or something we “had to have” in order to make our trip happen, but it did help give us more freedom. Good luck with your preparations for your sailing trip. We wish you all the best and would love to follow along on your journey if you ever decide to share it. Let us know how it all works out for you! Thanks!
Randall & Kenzie, Thanks for responding back to me. Yes it would be nice to have a watermaker I can see, when I get my larger boat it might happen. I have installed a inline backpacking water filter on my water system just before the handpump, will be using coffee filters to pre-filter all water and adding a little bleach to the water tank too just to be safe. All boats should be set up for the owners personal needs/wants. Thanks for your perspective on your decisions. I'm in the process of building a insulated ice box to fit in my small boat because I like cool drinks and fresh meat, after my week long trip sailing the Florida Keys this May I'll decide if I need to add a refrigeration system. Thanks again guys... Fair Winds and Seas!
Didn't the water maker manual have instructions on assembly? What pressure were you running? Only around 800 PSI is needed, usually.
Yes we did read the manual several times. It's not an adjustable pressure. There's just an on and off switch. The problem was caused by a manufacturing defect, that i was able to overcome, by over torquing the head bolt. Thanks for watching our videos and for leaving us a comment, we really appreciate it!
I did not mean to imply you were negligent. I would have expected the instructions to have detailed instructions for torquing the bolts. Katadyn seems to be a very good manufacturer and I was surprised this would slip through QC. On a different note, does anyone make a smaller water maker? My boat is smaller than yours, and I would be happy with a smaller and less expensive unit. I have 200 Watts of solar panels, and 240 A/h on my main battery bank. I would be happy with 5 GPH. All the smaller water makers seem to be designed for temporary use and are hand pumped. I know a larger unit could be derated by mounting a smaller pump, but I would prefer a matched system. I do not have room for a huge water tank 10-15 gallons is about my limit.
If the leakage was due to a unflat mating surface you probably wouldn't be able to detect the surface imperfections with your fingers. Those surfaces needs to be milled flat to take the pressure. And to end flexing the flanges probably should be made thicker.
Doesn't sound like a unit designed for continuous use.
Thanks for watching our videos and for leaving us a comment. We were very happy with this watermarker and are so glad that we had one while on our trip. Even though we did have a bad start with this one, it never gave us any further troubles and we did use it just about everyday.
Where did you get the bracket for your filter?
This unit shoild only be mounted flat.
Mounted on a vertical surface causes issues with the gearbox and other components
Thank you for watching our videos and for taking the time to leave us a comment! We really appreciate it. I think you have it backwards, it's the pump body that can't be vertical not the mounting surface. So you've got it partially right. The problem doesn't arise from mounting the unit on a vertical surface, but rather from having the pump body and thereby membrane tube mounted in a vertical orientation. The pump body and membrane cartridge should always be mounted horizontal, but can rotate to mount on any surface, i.e. floor, wall, or ceiling, as all of these options allow for a non vertical orientation of the pump body. The Katadyn user manual says: "...the pump and gear box should be mounted so that they are on a horizontal plane...We recommend securely thru-bolting the pump/drive assembly to a sturdy bulkhead or platform..."
We haven't had any problems with where we mounted ours. If we had any final tips it would be, mount the unit on rubber grommets to lessen to noise and mount the pre-filter in an extremely easy to access location. Here are some links that we found helpful when researching our watermaker. They include the full mounting instructions.
~www.katadyn.com/downloads/katadyn/manuals/desalinators/manual_powersurvivor-40e_oil-up-to-sn-40-05249_en.pdf
~www.ishipaco.com/katadyn/docs/WatermakerBook.PDF
Depending on the year model you have. At some stage the gearboxes were oil filled and this caused issues for vertical surface mount. Then they changed to grease.
When out cruising you can not have enough spares.
I follow this rule for critical spares.
3 is 2 is 1 is none.
That is a great rule to live by especially if you are cruising to the out-islands where there really isn't anyone there to help in time of need. There were a couple of time while cruising The Bahamas that we were glad that we had spare parts and tools to help get us out of some tricky situations by ourselves. Thank you so much for watching our videos and for taking the time to leave us a great comment! We really appreciate it!
sometimes you have to be practical: get some 5 gallon water jugs and ask someone if you can have some water from their outdoor spigot. 99% of people will say yes, i know i would.
unless you're cruising bluewater or in some desolate parts of the world you can get water literally anywhere cheaply, even free. just my 02 bra. happy sailing!
Good thought. It's good to know that there are kind people out there that would be willing to help others out when in need. We would have filled up with water before leaving the marina there in Fort Pierce, but the water there was way nasty and smelled of rotten eggs. We were just glad when we got the water maker up and running again. We loved having it aboard especially while at remote islands in The Bahamas. We never felt rushed to get to a new destination where we could get fresh drinking water. Thank you so much for watching our videos and for leaving us a great comment! We appreciate you being part of our sailing adventure!
@@SailingTurtle Sulfur well water occurs commonly in rural areas of NE Florida. If you let it set out uncovered for a few hours or overnight/ let it breathe as it were or just run it through a common water pitcher filter like Britta, yer good to go /if you encounter this in the future.
Since fresh water is critical to one's survival, how could a few hundred dollars for a repair kit deter one from buying it? Really poor judgement.